I'm in Munich!! After an incredibly long commute, I am finally here! I flew from the Philadelphia int'l airport, to Newark int'l airport, to Munich. I had a 5 hour layover in Newark, which may seem silly to you, because it is. Thankfully I have my nook so I decided to purchase one of Chelsea Handler's books while I still had free wifi in the Philadelphia airport, and that kept me occupied on both flights as well as during the layover. I'm sure my uncontrollable loling didn't disturb neighboring passengers...?
You would think with a 5 hour layover that I should have had ample time to figure out what gate my next flight was leaving from since it wasn't printed on my original boarding pass... not so. The gate for my flight was not listed on any of the departure screens. SO, at 7:30 (which is when people were supposed to start boarding the plane), I went to a customer service desk to see what the deal was. Turns out my flight was leaving from terminal B, not terminal C (which is where I was), and I needed to take the airtran to the correct terminal. It also turns out that once I got to terminal B, I needed to go through security AGAIN, and then board the plane. Hyperventilating, I jogged to the airtran, got to security, begged the priority security line guy to let me through, succeeded, and got to my gate around 8:05, only to realize that there were still about 1,000 people waiting at the gate to board. Mind you, I was sweating through my shirt at this point, so I looked really dumb. It was pretty funny.
I can't sleep on planes, so I read my nook and watched Crazy, Stupid, Love, which I recommend to anyone who hasn't seen it. Once I got to Munich, Mimi and her Mom, Stefanie, were waiting for me with a rose! It was really sweet. We got in their car and drove to Stockdorf, which is just 15 minutes southwest of center city Munich. Mimi is the cutest thing in the whole world, and I instantly clicked with her. She has several different identities- dog, kitty, tiger, snail. Most of the time she is a Rettungshund (dog who saves people) named Schnuffi. It's hilarious. Mimi/Schnuffi was helping me unpack but would only remove things from my bag with her teeth. Obviously. Then she found the frisbee that I packed and made me toss it onto my bed so that she could retrieve it with her teeth and bring it back to me like a real dog. She speaks the cutest mix of German and English, and her German is about the same level as mine. It's perfect. Stefanie is very talkative and speaks almost perfect English, so conversing with her is really easy. Her husband, Matthias, speaks very little English, so I'll have to speak German with him. Stefanie's parents live around the corner and we went to see them last night after taking Mimi to open gym "gymnastics." We spoke German the whole time, and although I was kind of afraid to speak, I understood almost everything they were saying! It was pretty exciting, considering my first opportunity to speak German on the plane went miserably. The stewardess asked me what I wanted to drink, and after reciting the word "Orangensaft" (orange juice) over and over in my head, what came out of my mouth sounded something more like "Oranzentaft." You do not need to speak German to recognize that those are two very different sounding words. Also, Orangensaft is one of the first things you learn to say when learning German in school. I laughed a little bit afterwards. I was just nervous.
My room here is perfect. It has everything I need as well as a HUGE bookcase along the wall with every kind of book imaginable, including about 30 travel books and at least 15 art history books. I'm obsessed. There is also a full length mirror on the back of the door, which any girl can appreciate. The bathroom is huge and it's right next to my room. All four of us share it, which I don't think will be much of an issue since we all have different schedules.
I am so excited to start exploring and finding my way around here, and I can't wait to go into Munich soon!
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